Hello, my name is Zucchero and this is a guide I've made to help out those who are stuck on their way to becoming what they wish in Diablo 3 or are just simply getting into the game. I cover multiple levels of gear in this guide, farm routes for all the acts of the game and a few builds which have proven themselves to be most effective in completing said routes.

I hope you'll find what you're about to read informative and helpful. Use this guide as a reference point and don't be afraid to improvise and improve using the data you have here!

CotA - Crypt of the Ancients, a dungeon located in the Act 1 zone, The Festering Woods.

CrD // Crit. Dmg - Critical hit damage.

Dex - Dexterity, primary attribute of the demon hunter.

Disc - Discipline, defense and utility resource of the demon hunter.

DH - Demon Hunter.

DPS - Damage per Second, your total damage output within a second.This is calculated through an equation based on the character's Attack Speed, Critical Hit Damage, Critical Hit Chance and Dexterity. Click here for a tool with which you can calculate the DPS of your character.

EHP - Effective health, which is determined through an equation that takes into account the HP (Health Points) of a character, his avoidance and his resistances/armor. Click here for a tool with which you can calculate the EHP of your character.

Hatred - The offensive resource of the Demon Hunter. It is generated by some abilities and consumed by others.

NOTE: All of the builds listed here have been tested in each of the farm routes that I have recommended. Builds 1 and 2 are fairly equal, the choice boils down to play style really. I've outlined their pros and cons so you can best decide for yourself. They can all be used in both solo-farming and group-farming without any drawbacks.

Ensures a very good pace for farming in lower MP levels and in theory, with a high enough level of gear, it should offer the same even in the highest of MP levels.

CONS:

Poor survivabillity in more sticky situations.

Some of the abilities scale poorly with gear, so you'll need to invest a lot before you can use it at high MP levels.

Primary - Hungering Arrow with the Devouring Arrow rune – High single target damage output. (Alternative rune: Spray of Teeth – has decent AoE, but I feel it lacks the variety that Devouring Arrow brings in combination with Elemental Arrow).

1. Shadow Power with the Gloom rune – Gives you 15% life steal on all damage dealt and 35% reduced damage taken for 6 seconds. This is an invaluable ability, as it will save your bacon in many situations. When you fire an AoE shot into a group of mobs it will keep you alive through a lot of hurt.

2. Smoke Screen with the Lingering Fog rune – Makes you invulnerable (except for a few special situations) to any form of damage for 1.5 seconds. I use this when Shadow Power doesn’t quite have the strength to keep me alive. It offers a great escape mechanism, the “Oh-sh*t” button.

3. Vault with the Tumble rune – Makes traversing terrain, kiting enemies and escaping sticky situations very easy and manageable and it also adds a great sense of mobility to the gameplay.

4. Preparation with the Backup Plan rune – The extra discipline will come in handy in multiple situations, seeing as this build has 3 very high-cost discipline based abilities. The rune offers a nice little gamble on each use.

Passive Skills:

1. Archery – Offers a 15% damage increase across the board for Bows, a 50% critical hit damage increase for Crossbows and a 10% critical hit chance increase when using 1-Handed Crossbows. For this particular build, I recommend using either a Bow or a Two-Handed Crossbow.

2. Tactical Advantage – Increased movement speed after using Vault or Smoke Screen. This will give you an extra level of mobility and it will shorten your running time significantly.

3. Steady Aim – 15% damage increase across the board if no enemies are near you. Pretty self-explanatory and it’s a better choice in my opinion than Sharpshooter, seeing as the later only offers a bit of burst at the start of a fight and then completely loses any relevance 3 seconds into it.

I recommend you have at least +10 discipline from your gear for this build, it will make your life considerably easier.

You can take on Infernal Machine bosses on MP3 with ease, if you have over 100k DPS and 450k EHP.

Great for trying out higher MP levels.

CONS:

Fairly low amounts of DPS.

Doesn't work in low MP levels, build 1 is much more efficient there.

Primary – Bola Shot with the Volatile Explosives rune – This is a very spammable ability, and you will melt groups of enemies very quickly with it.

Secondary – Spike Trap with the Echoing Blast rune – Very high damage output, excellent at killing groups of monsters or stacking 3 beneath a single boss and bursting him down. Given the fact that Bola Shot generates hatred very fast, you will be able to use these quite easily.

Active Skills:

1. Shadow Power with the Gloom rune - Gives you 15% life steal on all damage dealt and 35% reduced damage taken for 6 seconds. Same principle as the first build apply here.

3. Vault with the Tumble rune – Offers mobility and an escape mechanism.

4. Preparation with the Backup Plan rune - Ensures you can keep the two very discipline dependent abilities (Shadow Power and Smoke Screen) up and available at all times.

Passive skills:

1. Night Stalker - Provides the possibility for the DH to become "immortal", by always having enough discipline to keep Shadow Power up and having enough damage output to compensate for any amount of incoming damage.

2. Perfectionist - Fulfils the same basic principle as Night Stalker. More disc and EHP.

3. Tactical Advantage - This passive reduces your travel time and adds a little sense of speed to your character.

NOTE: This is a dedicated build for a specific type of farm run, see the details here.

Primary – Hungering Arrow with the Devouring Arrow rune – Gives you a bit of burst damage so you can handle the elite.

Secondary – Elemental Arrow with the Ball Lightning rune – You can fire these off as you enter the room and you can be sure you’ll hit everything. If your gear is good enough, you’ll melt through every mob in this area in a matter of seconds.

Active skills:

1. Shadow Power with the Gloom glyph – Mandatory ability here, since you will be rushing head long into 50 mobs at a time. It’ll ensure you will stay alive.

2. Vault with the Tumble glyph – Reduces the time you spend collecting gold and Health Globes and also helps with AoE.

3. Rain of Vengeance with the Dark Cloud glyph – This will ensure that you will keep your kill streak up and always give your Shadow Power something to leech from.

4. Preparation with the Backup Plan glyph - Gives you a way of replenishing your discipline in case you ever need it...and you will need it.

NOTE 1: These guides are designed so that you have a rough idea of what gear you can expect, for the money you are willing to spend. When searching for gear upgrades on the AH based off of this guide, please be prepared to make slight adjustments (either increasing if the budget allows it or decreasing if the market price goes up too much) to the affix values, as prices vary constantly.

NOTE 2: I have not included any Magic Find in the mandatory searches. This is a very important aspect, as it skews results and you can never truly make a reliable guide if you factor in MF. In case you are looking for gear with MF, you can still use this guide as a template, as it outlines the basic stat combinations that make the class work, just be prepared to pay a lot more for gear with that particular affix.

As a rule of thumb, when you are looking for gear for a demon hunter, you should look out for the following things:

Dexterity is extremely important. The more dexterity you have, the more your Crit. Chance and Crit. Dmg matter and vice-versa. For example, at high end levels of gear ( 2400 dex, 50% crit chance, 40% attack speed and 300+ crit hit damage), a point of Dex will give you approximately 60 DPS.

You must strive for at least 40% Crit. Chance and 220% Crit. Dmg. , even at the lowest levels of gear.

If you can find a helmet with the mandatory combination within the budget, buy it ASAP. An alternative, if you wish to go for high DPS and sacrifice some survivabillity would be Andariel's Visage, just be sure you search for one with over 100 dexterity, low extra poison damage taken and a socket (if within budget).

You can get a very good Nat's helm with CC with ease. If however, you wish to maximize DPS at the expense of the 4 set Natalya bonus, you can go for an Andariel's Visage with a socket and over 100 Dex.

A Natalya's ring will enable you to complete the set and gain the 20 discipline. This will prove invaluable, as it will allow you to experiment with other builds and increase your survival-rate to ludicrous levels.

At this point, the Manticore is only really beaten by really sick rare crossbows or bows, so it still remains top dog in my opinion.

In terms of gems, you should go for a 29% XP gem in your helmet if you want to get XP more quickly or a 17% life gem for EHP. The +50 dex gems should be the minimum level you should have socketed in your gear, as well as a Radiant Star Emerald for your weapon.What kind of DPS and EHP can I expect from this gear? (Paragon level 0)
Around 150.000 DPS and 350.000 EHP. MP3 becomes a walk-in-the-park, MP4 is slightly difficult, but manageable

At this point, the Manticore is only really beaten by really sick rare crossbows or bows, so it still remains top dog in my opinion.

In terms of gems, you should go for a 29% XP gem in your helmet if you want to get XP more quickly or a 17% life gem for EHP. The +46 Dex gems should be the minimum level you should have socketed in your gear, as well as a Perfect Star Emerald for your weapon.What kind of DPS and EHP can I expect from this gear? (Paragon level 0)
Around 180.000 DPS and 400.000 EHP. You can expect to farm MP4 at a fast rate, being able to stretch yourself up until MP7-8.

This is the weakest link in this item build, as there are better alternatives, but the extra 20 discipline makes up for it. This helmet is recommended for Build 1, but can also be used to some extent in Build 2.

In terms of gems, you should go for a 29% XP gem in your helmet if you want to get XP more quickly or a 17% life gem for EHP. The +50 dex gems should be the minimum level you should have socketed in your gear, as well as 2x Radiant Star Emeralds for your weapon.

What kind of DPS and EHP can I expect from this gear? (Paragon level 0, build 1)This one is a bit tricky to say, it depends on your luck at the AH. You can have anywhere from 250.000 DPS to upwards of 500.000 DPS. A reasonable estimate would be around 300.000 DPS and 650.000 EHP. This should enable you to do MP6 at a very fast rate, but anything after that just grows exponentially in HP, so I wouldn't say it is worth stretching yourself any further.

In terms of gems, you should go for a 29% XP gem in your helmet if you want to get XP more quickly or a 17% life gem for EHP. The +50 dex gems should be the minimum level you should have socketed in your gear, as well as 2x Radiant Star Emeralds for your weapon.

What kind of DPS and EHP can I expect from this gear? (Paragon level 0, build 2)
Build 2 has less damage output than Build 1, but you will be able to survive anything the game throws at you (including MP10 Uber bosses). At this point your health and damage are so high, you can tank anything using Shadow Power. Projected Stats: 180-300k DPS and 1 - 1.5 million EHP.

NOTE: The Enchantress and Scoundrel are equally matched up to the highest levels of gear, while the Templar has a severe lack of utility I highly recommended using the Enchantress or the Scoundrel and ignoring the Templar completely.

Search for a rare amulet with GF and MF. An alternative to this would be Xephirian Amulet.

Weapon

I recommend getting a Two-Handed Crossbow or a Bow with Frost damage (you can search for it in the AH). Doesn't have to have damage or any other affix. This is so the Multishot ability becomes very potent.

I recommend you don't use this follower, and go for one of the other two. It doesn't provide any kind of meaningful utility or DPS/EHP increase. His only perk is that he can attain the highest level of MF of any of the followers. In case you do decide to use it though, I've outlined the recommended skills and items you should get on him.

Recommended skills for the Templar

Intervene - Makes the Templar able to take some mobs of you, giving him some utility in combat

Start at the last quest in Act 1 and teleport to the Festering Woods, clear that area, including the two sub-zones (Crypt of the Ancients and Warrior's Rest), then teleport to Leoric's Manor, go outside into the courtyard, clear it, go to Leoric's Hunting Grounds. At this point you should have 5 stacks so go to the Fields of Misery, find and kill the Warden.

Start at the last quest in Act 1 and teleport to the Festering Woods, clear that area, including the two sub-zones (Crypt of the Ancients and Warrior's Rest), then teleport to Leoric's Manor, go outside into the courtyard, clear it, go to Leoric's Hunting Grounds and clear that as well.

Continue on with your farm route by going to the Northern Highlands, followed by the Southern Highlands (if you enter this area from the Northern Highlands, go North-West and follow the edge of the map until you find the Watchtower (it has a 50% spawn-rate), clear it, afterwards continue searching the Southern Highlands for the Cave of Moon Clan and clear that as well. In my opinion, if you want to farm Act 1, this is the most efficient route, you can include a few more areas in your route like the Cathedral and the Cemetery of the Forsaken, but I feel they do not have enough elite/champion groups to justify their presence.

NOTE: Please refer to this for the recommended build that is to be used here.

Start the game with the quest Quest 6 (Broken Blade), sub-objective "Talk to Alaric", teleport to the Drowned Temple, talk to the NPC there and then head over to the Festering Woods and find the Crypt of the Ancients. Once you enter, clear the area and then town portal and log out. At this point, if you click "Resume Game" you will begin at the entrance of this dungeon. Clear it again, town portal and log out, rinse and repeat.

This is a very good way to farm XP and gold and also have a decent chance at item drops. The principle of this run is speed, so doing it in MP0 (or even MP1 if your gear allows it) is very efficient, as long as you can complete a run of the Crypts in about a minute. For this particular run, movement speed and pick-up radius offer massive bonuses.

An alternative to this run is the Warrior's Rest, you follow the same steps, but instead of going to the Crypt of the Ancients, you go to the Warrior's Rest (also in Festering Woods). It isn't as efficient, but if you prefer this dungeon to the other, it is up to you.

You start the game in Act 2, Quest 8 (The Black Soulstone), sub-objective 1. Teleport to the Desolate Sands and find the Vault of the Assassins in this area. Enter and clear it, but do not take the teleporter out of the dungeon, instead town portal, end game and resume. You will start at the beginning of the Vault , rinse and repeat.

High density of elites and champions in this particular dungeon guarantee a high level of efficiency.

I recommend MP3-4 for this run, for efficiency reasons. If your gear allows you to melt through this at a reasonable pace, you can consider upgrading to a higher MP level. (High-end gear level+ only)

Start the game at Quest 7, sub-objective three "Kill Azmodan" and teleport to the Tower of Damned Level 1, clear that level, go to Tower of the Damned level 2, clear that level, go to Heart of the Damned, clear that level and then take the exit to Arreat Crater Level 2 and use the waygate there to teleport to The Core of Arreat, clear the level, enter the Heart of Sin and defeat Azmodan. At this point you can choose to go for the Key Warden by teleporting to the Stone Fort, finding and killing him.

I recommend this run be done at MP 2-3, it's very fast and efficient and yields great results for normal farming as well as key farming.

Start the game at Quest 7, sub-objective three "Kill Azmodan" and teleport to Arreat Crater level 1, clear the level then enter the Tower of the Damned level 1, clear it, enter Tower of the Damned level 2, clear it, enter the Heart of the Damned, clear it, exit into Arreat Crater level 2 and clear it, enter the Heart of the Cursed level 1 and clear it, enter the Heart of the Cursed level 2, go through the Heart of the Cursed and into the Core of Arreat, clear that level, kill Azmodan and then TP back to the base. Once you've done so, enter the Keep Depths level 1, clear it, enter the Keep Depths level 2, clear it and then do the same with Keep Depths level 3. At this point, you should teleport back to Bastion's Keep and use the waygate to get to Stonefort, clear the level, find and kill the warden.

If you want to make your run extra-long, you can choose to teleport to Rakkis Crossing and proceed south-west towards the Fields of Slaughter. Enter any stores or other dungeons you find along the way. Once you reach the Fields, clear the area and go into the Caverns of Frost/Icefall Caves (only one of these will be spawned at any one time, and each has 2 levels). The extended run is at its most efficient with only these extra areas, adding on any others can prove to be too time-consuming and will break your pace.

This farm run can take up to an hour, so it is a bit of an endurance run (especially the extra-long one). I recommend doing it on MP2, if your gear offers you a comfortable pace.

Act 4 is way too inefficient for farming in my opinion, very low mob density, mob difficulty is higher than previous acts with no extra benefit. The only real reason you’d come here is for the Infernal Machine plans, for which I recommend doing a clear from the first quest of the act up to the keeper himself, thus ensuring that you will have 5 Nephalem stacks when you reach him. Try MP3 so you have a higher chance of success when attempting to farm the plan (Mid-range level gear+).

If you are ever in search of more information about Demon Hunters, or indeed Diablo 3 in general, check out these sites:

D3 Max Stats - gives information on the maximum affixes that can roll on any one item. Extremely useful for making informed decisions on the AH.

Diablo Progress - fun and informative site, it ranks you against all the other players of the world, so you can have an idea where you on the ladder. Also, has lists of every item ever generated on the D3 live servers.

A suggestion regarding scoundrel follower gear; the level 40 legendary crossbow Buriza-Do Kyanon is an amazing weapon for a scoundrel, as it can have up to 15% freeze chance on hit, up to 80% chance to pierce enemies, and even does frost damage, I've been using it a long time and it really is noticeable how much crowd control it offers, the only downside being the low damage, but I think it's worth it. Also as a note, you can get an amulet with chance to blind on hit, so even more CC.

Yeah it's pretty cheap to put the gear together too. I have 170k DPS and 300 All resist( it would be higher but i have horrible luck with hellfire rings). You will pretty much 1 shot trash and most elites die in 10 seconds or less (on mp 0). Just shoot for high hatred regen and a fair amount of + Discipline. I paid 500k for the chest piece and 1.5 million for the quiver. The other gear is self found or poached from my monk.
I was checking the AH after my last post.You can put a similar set of my gear together for about 50 million.

Are there no other builds which are viable?
I'm thinking of switching to DH since my Wizard just died, but the choice for builds seem really limited.

I personally use a slightly modified version of the first Build ( Hungering/elemental arrow ) which replaces smoke screen with the Boar companion. I find this helps my DH survive a bit better and the piggy makes a half decent tank so i can spend more time nuking and less time kiting. You could also take the templar over the other 2 followers for an extra tank and the templar can have a fair bit of MF if you equip him with a sun keeper and a 20% mf shield + rings and amu.

I also prefer the Battle Scars rune over Back up Plan because you basically have a never ending 2nd health potion for the sticky situations.

Hi, I use a slightly modified version of the second build (bola/spiked trap) which replaces smoke screen with the Guardian turret. Vault into a pack, activate turret+SP... Tanking mobs makes shure that all spiked traps would be used with maximal efficiency

First of all, great guide, congratz! I'm thinking of updating the visual representation of my guide and noticed that your gear section is somewhat similar to mine, but much much nicer. Just like Krat0s' monk guide as well. Can you tell me the code of your tables? Or is it a simple BBCode table and just the font/color/... changes that make it look nicer? I kind of would like to have fixed column width and maybe even a border, but at the very least I'm thinking of taking your color coding as an inspiration if nothing else works (with giving you credit, of course).

Any hint on how to deal with the forum's layout mess would be very much appreciated.

I must admit, I did take inspiration from your guide as well when I was initially creating my own, so the least I can do is return the favor.

The tables themselves are made with BBCode. The aesthetic is indeed just in the color scheme (which you can use as well if you wish), just make sure the editor doesn't screw you over when using colors, it sometimes bugs and makes all the text a white-ish color. I found that the best way to prevent this is only modifying one word at a time, so that no problems arise.

I also recommend using the spoiler tag, it breaks up the wall of text that a long guide inevitably becomes.

As for recommendations regarding how to tackle the editor, I'm afraid I can't offer any. It was a pain to get mine sorted out, and I've no idea on how to avoid the tedium that you might have to go through.

Your info on the follower gear is wrong. You only get 20% of the MF on the follower, thus a follower with a weapon of 50 MF only yields 0.2 * 50 = 10 MF. That is basically nothing! Much better idea to help your survivability and kill faster than to get less than 10 MF.

Neck(All)the-star-of-azkaranth
Ideally get freeze for the Templar and Scoundrel as the affix is likely additive, thus removing the probability that several CCs occur at the same time. For example a stun and a freeze occurring at the same time.

Rings
If you want/need the follower to not die, then you might invest in his effective health. If you take this route, +IAS (Increased attack speed) is also quite useful as it will enable their followers weapons to proc more often. Otherwise, +exp is the way to go.

First of all, thx for the guide its very nice information and the gear section ist outstandingly usefull.
The only question left over to me is if nat chest really is best in slot, most dh i see use innas and theres some really nice arguments on using it now that we could hide the uglyness.
Whats your thoughts on this, is 10dicipline really worth the loss of stats?

Also for builds below 500m and while not using inna chest im fairly sure that the innas belt nets more dps for half the cost of a witching hour easily due to the 130extra dex!

First of all, thx for the guide its very nice information and the gear section ist outstandingly usefull.
The only question left over to me is if nat chest really is best in slot, most dh i see use innas and theres some really nice arguments on using it now that we could hide the uglyness.
Whats your thoughts on this, is 10dicipline really worth the loss of stats?

Also for builds below 500m and while not using inna chest im fairly sure that the innas belt nets more dps for half the cost of a witching hour easily due to the 130extra dex!

My WH, which is kinda shitty, yields the same dps as my innas belt with set bonus.

You are correct the most common setup, and arguably the best is Inna chest + inna pants + nat ring + nat boots.

Is a nat's ring really better than a SoJ with 12+% bola shot or elemental arrow and 30% to elites + 10 max discipline? Or with multishot bonus? I don't think so, personally. Especially the stronger your character is. I would leave the ring as last upgrade and calculate just how much it matters then, since it may seem better at low dps to take a nat's ring. Obviously once you reach level 100 it's a nat's ring + soj though

Is a nat's ring really better than a SoJ with 12+% bola shot or elemental arrow and 30% to elites + 10 max discipline? Or with multishot bonus? I don't think so, personally. Especially the stronger your character is. I would leave the ring as last upgrade and calculate just how much it matters then, since it may seem better at low dps to take a nat's ring. Obviously once you reach level 100 it's a nat's ring + soj though

You can use 2 rings, so you could easily use both if you wanted. I guess it would depend on build and what you are doing to answer if its truly worth using SOJ.